Zine Days Rimbaud Punk the New York School

“Zine Days”: Rimbaud, Punk, the New York School and Little Caesar Brian Kim Stefans, UCLA

An Historical Anthology of Los Angeles Poetry (1885 -1985)

1. The Mexican Period and Chicano Writing Overview of poetry publishing in the period before U. S. colonialism; review of some of the genres of poetry that were created during this period; consideration of what it meant to be “Mexican” and/or “Chicano” in that period; look at the work of the most accomplished poet, “Dantes, ” in relation to other Mexican poetry of the time; consideration of themes developed here and later Chicano writing. 2. Three Women Poets: Nora May French, Olive Percival and Julia Boynton Green Difficulties of finding work by early Los Angeles Poets; review of the fine book print tradition (Ward Ritchie, etc. ); review of issues related to “landscape” art and its promotion by people like Lummis to encourage migration out here and how Percival and Clark relate to this; ends with focus on Nora May French.

3. Thomas Mc. Grath and the Mc. Carthy Era Quick review of the life and works of Mc. Grath; consideration of the various left-leaning magazines circulating at the time; look at certain key incidents, such as the firing of Mc. Grath, the Ginsberg reading and the LA Poets anthology; a look at the writing of Curtis Zahn, James Boyer May, Josephine Ain and Peter Yates; Bertolt Brecht. 4. The Case of John Thomas Brief review of the Venice West scene, including side notes on poets such as Stuart Perkoff; recounting of John Thomas’s biography (including his trial for child molestation); consideration of the poems and “Patagonia”; linkage to Bataille and the libertine tradition in French literature; considerations of Thomas relationship to the English tradition of “earthy” spiritual writing, including Blake and Hogarth.

5. The Watts Writers Workshop A review of themes of Black Arts; consideration of the specific contribution of Los Angeles poets; look at the origins of the Watts Writers Workshop started by Budd Schulberg; consideration of Quncey Troupe and other poets who came out of this scene, culminating in the writing of Michele Clinton; consideration of the more “cosmic” side of their legacy in such writers as Will Alexander. 6. The Success and Failure of Henri Coulette A consideration of literature in the academy in Los Angeles and the problems of “formalist” writing; a review of Coulette’s life, including the accidental pulping of his second book and his descent into alcoholism; a close look at Coulette’s poetry; considerations of American “formalism” and Coulette’s dual devotion to the writing of Berryman and Larkin.

7. Charles Bukowski and the Meat Poets A defense of Bukowski’s early poetry against his later writing; the question of libertinism etc. as first posed in the Thomas essay; a look at the writing of disciples of Bukowski, including one not often associated with him, F. A. Nettelbeck (Bug Death); reflections of the fame of the Bukowski approach and its specific hold on “Hollywood. ” 8. Art and Text in the Seventies Strange origins in Wiliam Cheney and his miniature books; the Los Angeles text-art scene including Ed Ruscha, Allen Ruppersberg and Guy De. Cointet; a side note on Hugh Fox; side note on Aram Saroyan; a consideration of the present day emphasis on performance and conceptual writing, asking whether conceptual texts such as Ruppersberg’s deserves to be called “poetry”; a consideration of William Poundstone.

The Little Caesar Scene Consideration of the punk scene in Los Angeles at the time; a look at the writing of Rimbaud; review of the poets, most especially Dennis Cooper, and their attachment to the New York School; a look at the writing and life of Bob Flanagan; questions about relationship of the “abject” to poetry and performance art; a note on Amy Gerstler. 10. Leland Hickman and Temblor A look at the Momentum scene around William Mohr; a note on Sulfur edited by Clayton Eshlemen; a note on Sun & Moon and Green Integer; a note on the publishing activities of Paul Vangelisti; a consideration of Hickman’s writing; an overview of Temblor and the writers associated with it who remain in Los Angeles (such as Diane Ward, Dennis Philips, etc. ); side note on Robert Crosson.

Arthur Rimbaud (1854 -1891)

Arthur Rimbaud (1854 -1891)

Punk

The New York School Poets

Little Caesar: Timeline

�Issue 1: 1976, 36 pp. , edited by Cooper/Glaeser 2: 1976, 44 pp. , edited by Cooper/Glaeser 3: 1977, 40 pp. , edited by Cooper 4: 1977, 57 pp. , edited by Cooper (Malanga Issue) �Issue 5: 1978, 52 pp. , edited by Cooper (Rimbaud Issue) �Issue 6: 1978, 68 pp. , edited by Cooper (Wieners Issue) �Issue 7: (Eric Emerson cover) �Issue 8: (Iggy Pop cover) �Issue 9: 1979, 420 pp. , edited by Malanga (Heliczer Issue) �Issue 10: 1980, 136 pp. , edited by Cooper �Issue 11: 1980, 240 pp. , edited by Cooper �Issue 12: 1982, edited by Ian Young (Overlooked

Little Caesar: Addresses

Rimbaud, “Alchemy of the Word” For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable. What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints; old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naive rhythms of country rimes. I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents: I used to believe in every kind of magic. I invented colors for the vowels! - A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a

Little Caesar: Icons

Photographs/Images in LC 1 -6 �Little Caesar 1: Jim Glaeser, Dennis Cooper, Ron Koertge �Little Caesar 2: Adolphe Menjou (early film actor, 1890 -1963, cover), Greg Kuzma, “Arthur Meets Patti” cartoon, advertisement for The Quick �Little Caesar 3: John Kennedy Jr. , advertisement for The Quick, Dennis Cooper’s “The Population of Heaven and Earth” photo poem [slide], Tom Clark (painting of) �Little Caesar 4: Keith Richards (cover), The Quick fan club and Wayne Mc. Neill’s Lola ads, S. R. Lavin, Gerard Malanga

Images in Little Caesar 5 � Rimbaud (cover) � “Meet Us Here Each Month” ad [slide] � Rimbaud at 12 and autograph � Rimbaud’s grave and manuscript � “Rimbaud ‘ 43” (Delmore Schwartz) � “A Visit to Charleville and the Rimbaud Museum” 5 - page photo essay � “Rimbaud ‘ 55” (James Dean) [slide] � “Les Très Riches Heures de Artur Rimbaud” (sic) cartoon by Steve Abbott � “Happy Birthday Arthur” cartoon by Caz

Images Little Caesar 5 (cont’d) �“Rimbaud ‘ 67” (Syd Barrett) �Rimbaud manuscript reproduction and photo �“Rimbaud ‘ 73” (Chris Burden) �Rimbaud Crossword �Willard Maas and Gerard Malanga on beach �Rimbaud’s statue �“Rimbaud ‘ 77” (Johnny Rotten) �Ad for The Quick on b/c (no photo)

Little Caesar 6 �John Wieners (cover) �Billy Idol �The Quick (“A Quick Farewell” tribute) �Young John Wieners (studio) �John Wieners with Sedgewick/Malanga photo 1 �John Wieners with Sedgewick/Malanga photo 2 �John Wieners with Sedgewick/Malanga photo 3 �Wieners/Malanga/Rene Ricard group photo �“Out to Lunch: A Portrait of Silly Visuals by Joe Brainard” (15 pages of conceptual comics)

Little Caesar: Recoveries

The 12 th issue of Dennis Cooper's little magazine Little Caesar; this issue was edited by Ian Young, and devoted to overlooked writers. It features Steve Abbott on Bob Kaufman, Oswell Blakeston on Mary Butts, Glen Cavaliero on Phyllis Paul, Merritt Clifton on Mikhail Bulgakov, Kirby Congdon on Barbara Holland, Dan Diamond on Emilie Glen, Tim Dlugos on Donald Windham, Richard Hall on Edward Lewis Wallant, Kenneth Hopkins on Gamel Woolsey, Joseph Kadlec on Lorine Niedecker, Maurice Kenny on Willard Motley, Michael Lally on everyone, Irvine Layton on A. M. Klein, Robert Peters on Alfred Starr Hamilton, James Purdy on Denton Welch, Jerry Rosco on Glenway Westcott, George Steiner on John Cowper Powys, Edmund White on James Schuyler, George Whitmore on Phil Andros, Jonathan Williams, and Ian Young on John Glassco.

Little Caesar: Poetry

Vice: You started Little Caesar in Los Angeles in 1976. What was the idea? Cooper: I’d been writing a lot of poems and investigating the LA poetry scene with Amy Gerstler, who was my poet friend in college. It didn’t feel very interesting to me, what was going on. I was very, very into the New York School, the whole Saint Mark’s Poetry Project thing and the presses they were doing. I was madly collecting their books and pamphlets and chapbooks and magazines. And, I don’t know, I had this dream of doing something on a punier scale in LA. Then I went to England in ’ 76 because I’d heard the punk thing was happening and I went to look at it. It was so energizing to see that stuff, and also the zines they were doing, like Sniffin’ Glue. So when I got back to LA it seemed like the right time to give it a shot myself—have a small group of friends and people that I liked do a magazine without a center. Also try to pull some of the New York

Vice: Tell me about Beyond Baroque, the LA literary center you did events for during the time you were making Little Caesar. Cooper: The place had been started in the 60 s by this old leather guy named George Drury Smith. I started hanging out there in the mid-70 s to see readings, but it was very provincial. They never brought in writers from outside their crowd unless they happened to be in town and something fell into place. But they had a typesetting facility, and I started doing Little Caesar there. Bob Flanagan was running the readings, and he hated doing it, so they asked me if I’d be interested in taking over. I totally jumped at it, but I told them I wanted to remake it. I had a whole other idea about how to run the series. They said yeah, fine, because they thought it needed a boost. But there ended up being tremendous hostility

Vice: How come? Cooper: For one thing I abolished open readings. Everyone was furious at me, literally punching me and throwing things in my face. Because that’s all they had. They would go there every week and read their poems at the open reading and that was their thing. And to all the people who had always automatically gotten readings there I said no, you’re not good enough, you can’t read here. Vice: As only a 25 -year-old can dictate. Cooper: Right. At the time I thought, “This is just a provincial waste of time and we need to make it more national. ” I didn’t see them as being serious about what they were doing. I wanted there to be a lot of energy and I wanted people to be really serious about their writing. So I was picky. There were only about three or four people from the old crowd that I even

� Issue 1: all So-Cal with the exception of Ian Young (Toronto) � Issue 2: largely So-Cal, Ron Padgett, Tom Clark, Jean Genet, Barbara Holland, Lyn Lifshin, etc. � Issue 3: half So-Cal, Jim Carroll, Billy Collins (lived in L. A. for a while), Gerard Malanga, Marianne Graham (Canada), Greg Kuzma (Nebraska), Cesar Vallejo, etc. � Issue 4: half So-Cal, Joe Brainard, Jim Carroll, Tim Dlugos, S. R. Lavin, Paul Schmidt, Paul Verlaine, Ian Young � Issue 5 (Rimbaud Issue): partly So-Cal, Rene Ricard, Ian Young, Gerard Malanga, Aaron Shurin (S. F. ), Chaz, Jerah Chadwick, Wayne Mc. Neil � Issue 6: partly So-Cal, Ted Berrigan, Joe Brainard, Robert Creeley, Tim Dlugos, Lita Hornick, Gerard Malanga, Rene Ricard, John Wieners � Issue 7: partly So-Cal, Lou Reed, David Ignatow, Andy Warhol, Tom Meyer, Nico, Gerard Malanga, Robert Bly � Issue 8: partly So-Cal, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Meyer, Pierre Reverdy, Rene Ricard, Ian Young

Los Angeles Poets in Little Caesar � Gerard Locklin � Ronald Koertge � Terryl Hunter � Robert Peters � Gavin Dillard � Steve Richmond (starting issue 4) � Marcus Grapes (starting issue 4) � Kate Braverman (starting issue 8) � Jack Skelley (starting issue 10) � Michael Ford (starting issue 10) � Leland Hickman (starting issue 11) � Amy Gerstler (starting issue 11) � David Trinidad (starting issue 11) � James Krusoe (starting issue 11)

(in)Conclusions

�Started as a way to transform L. A. poetry culture, but in the end the network pulled the central figure out of it. �Though it contained elements peculiar to Dennis Cooper’s interests (the Toby Ross interview, for example), it was far more generous than that. �The amalgam of stardom and literature that was only hinted at in the earlier issues reached a fruition in the later ones, where poets were indeed elevated to the status of image, even poets with only one poem (as opposed to portfolios). �It suggests a template for later journals that mixed art, celebrity and poetry such as Bomb in New York. �Still stands at the center of several tensions that I think exist in Los Angeles literature when it comes

The Wilde Boys Salon, for Poetry or Maybe a Hot Date The featured poets, Dorothea Lasky and C A Conrad, sat on a plywood platform like fortunetellers. They read from their latest poems, including one from Mr. Conrad about a “fascist neighbor” kept awake by Mr. Conrad’s loud sex. The audience leaned forward to hear the reading whenever planes passed overhead on the way to La Guardia. After a brief question-and-answer session, guests surged back to the book-and-wine table, rummaging for last drops. Mr. Legault circulated, accepting hugs, encouraging everyone to stay late and drink up. At the poets’ table, Mr. Conrad painted the nails of a bosomy girl with a shaved head, occasionally pausing to sign books.